VREF support the Call for Lee Schipper Scholarship out for application. The Schipper family and the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities are now accepting applications for the 2020 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency.

Since 2018 the Volvo Research and Educational Foundation has supported the scholarship through a grant as well as linking the scholars to the VREF network of researchers.

The Scholarship usually awards up to three exceptional candidates a maximum of $10,000 each to advance transformative research in efficient and sustainable transport.

In addition to the usual annual global call for two scholars, for the first time in the history of the scholarships, one of them will be dedicated to the support of a young researcher from the African continent.

Awardees since 2017 (Granted from 2018 by VREF)

Valentina Montoya is currently an SJD candidate at Harvard Law School. Her work broadly focuses on the commuting characteristics of female domestic workers in Latin American cities, and how local government law shapes these commutes. As part of a research agenda that aims to connect the legal structures of authority with the way cities are planned and the impact of these designs on the real-life experiences of domestic workers, she is using a mixed-method approach to capture the gap between the way planners think and how domestic workers experience the city as profoundly disempowered commuters. Her research aims at promoting public policy and legal changes to respond to domestic workers' needs, and by doing so, improving the commuting conditions of similarly situated users in cities in the global south. Before her doctoral studies, Valentina received a master's degree in Law, also from Harvard Law School, a master's degree in legal theory, and a dual bachelor's degree in Law and Political Science from Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá, Colombia.

Teddy Forscheris currently a fourth year PhD student in the Transportation Engineering program at the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). His work broadly focuses on the impacts that changes in personal consumption patterns—particularly towards more e-commerce transactions—have on transportation networks. As part of a research agenda that aims to enhance municipal and regional adaptability in the presence of new mobility services, he is developing demand models that capture preferences for a wide variety of online goods (e.g., parcels, groceries, hot food, etc.). Additionally, he aims to pair this work with insights gathered regarding the volume and composition of changing last-mile delivery fleets to produce one of the first comprehensive views of the near-term future of consumption and transportation. Prior to his doctoral studies, Teddy received a dual Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering and City + Regional Planning, also from U.C. Berkeley.

The VREF invites PhD students and advanced master students from Sub-Saharan African (SSA) universities to apply for a Mobility Grant (MG) to support a visit to another SSA university with up to SEK 25 000.

This CityFixseries, produced by the WRI (World Ressources Institute) Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and supported by the VREF, discusses walking and cycling in cities with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries.

The Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF) inspires, initiates and supports research and educational activities through the Future Urban Transport Programme - How to deal with the complexity of urban transport (FUT).